I ran down to my office early Sunday morning to grab some food from the fridge there and look for my cell phone.
Things go missing on fair weekend.
As I drove by, a woman leaving the Pioneer jumped on a skateboard, maybe heading off to the ‘Cutter. I lingered at my office to look down on a most extraordinary scene: At 12:30 a.m. Main Street was bustling, at least by Haines standards.
Young people on bikes and crowds of walkers arrived from the fairgrounds. They were talking and singing and yelling out to friends, filing into Nolan Woodard’s pizza joint, which was open and busy.
One or perhaps two nights of the year, our quiet, Presbyterian town stays up past midnight. In years past, bands would play at local bars until after 5 a.m. on state fair Saturday night. All-nighters and early birders would bump into each other downtown over breakfast.
How exotic.
I came of age in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a small city with a healthy nightlife. Bar time was 2 a.m. weekdays and 3:30 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. I worked at a chili parlor that stayed open an hour after bar time to capture the nightbirds, who were either happy or exhausted and thus generous with tips.
There’s some life in the nightlife that small towns miss. Conversations people have in the wee hours are less likely to happen in the full light of day. In wine, there is truth and the cover of night softens edges. Fights and conciliation happen in the wee hours, so do admissions and revelations and things that people wouldn’t say during the business day.
That’s why journalists and writers always favored late hours. When I worked as a reporter, hotelier Arne Olsson every so often let me know about some juicy, inside story after he or I had a few drinks at his Halsingland.
Some people say that nothing good happens after midnight. Jimmy Breslin, the great sage of New York City, met both his wives in bars and said he wouldn’t trust a woman he didn’t meet in a bar. I met my wife in a bar, so I’m with Breslin.
Social lubricants work to make people more social. A recent study of alcohol use found that drinking with others is good for us; drinking alone had the opposite effect. The trick, then, is the right company.
A young person might find the right company on a warm night in a crowded bar in a small town, with live music playing and the crowd’s spirit up.
Hallelujah for our late nights. Here’s to more of them.